Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
SASORI: Bad news. It seems like the rift is--
HIDAN: Great, I'm going to go murderise Gōketsu Hazō!
SASORI: But there's no evidence yet that it'll help!
HIDAN: It won't hurt, and I feel like seein' the kid again. Also, I've been waitin' for three days to use the word "murderise" in a sentence, and Lord Jashin forbids us to let opportunities go by.
SASORI: Even worse news, Hidan somehow turned Bri*ish and misspells "murderize"
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
HAZOU: You're gonna lead him around in circles right?
JASHIN: You didn't hear it from me.
HAZOU: Well, duh.
JASHIN: Bro shouldn't have run away like a lil bitch lol
HAZOU: lol
JASHIN: You should go do some interesting shit though or I'll get bored.
HAZOU: ... right.
Rihaku
The Internet
Given Velerion's latest clarification and Uplift having so many productive avenues of research including, in time, BioRunicMinatosealing, I dont think Hazou should roll the dice on an effect (creating completely random rifts) that could destroy the world, even with low probability. You can only roll so many d20s before a natural 20 emerges and losing ten years of narrative because of a single dice roll just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
It would be safer to develop catastrophic armaments, secure the bladehorror rift and start the veterancy chain with Micro-Bladehorror, study Orochimaru's runes and make Remote Rift Yoink, or any number of possibilities.
Remote Explosive + Spatial Warping alone would change the face of warfare for any civilization that can deploy it; this is basically a deidara-level strategic asset.
It would be safer to develop catastrophic armaments, secure the bladehorror rift and start the veterancy chain with Micro-Bladehorror, study Orochimaru's runes and make Remote Rift Yoink, or any number of possibilities.
Remote Explosive + Spatial Warping alone would change the face of warfare for any civilization that can deploy it; this is basically a deidara-level strategic asset.
HAZŌ: Well, I was thinking about opening a bunch of rifts to random locations in order to have test rift scars for research. Is that interesting enough?
JASHIN: Sounds good.
HAZŌ starts to get up from the seance circle.
JASHIN: Wait. When you say "random locations", you mean on the Paths, right?
HAZŌ: No. That turned out to be hard. I figure it shouldn't be too risky if I only -
JASHIN: Kid, you are not opening a rift into my house.
HAZŌ: ... Can't you manipulate probabilities? You could just make the rift not open into your house.
Pause. HAZŌ sits back down.
HAZŌ: Also, you have a house?
JASHIN: ...
HAZŌ: Oh, also, while I've got you here, are you the Washerman, or the Unkind One? And how exactly does your probability manipulation work? And did you favour one of the Sage's companions? And come to think of it, how are you talking to me anyway? Hidan said your tongue was cut out.
JASHIN: No, no, not telling, yes, and I just spread that rumour to try and get people to stop bugging me. (Pause.) Speaking of which ...
HAZŌ: Right. I'll figure out something else interesting to do. (Pause.) Wait, you didn't answer my question about you having a house.
JASHIN: ...
KEI (enter stage left, following a trail of unexpectedly fallen branches): Hazō, are you communing with an eldritch god that should have remained forever sealed beyond this mortal coil?
HAZŌ (still in his seance trance): No?
KEI wins the Deceit roll!
KEI: Hazō, we discussed this. I shall convey you to the nearest volcanic caldera forthwith.
KEI picks HAZŌ up and carries him away.
JASHIN: Thank the Sage.
THE WASHERMAN (enter from the Naraka Path, holding several corpses): What was that about?
JASHIN: It's a long story -
HAZŌ (lifting his head, revealing himself to be one of the corpses): Lord Jashin! While I was being thrown into the caldera, I came up with lots more questions I wanted to ask you! (HAZŌ pulls out a sheaf of papers from a kunai wound in his torso; on inspection, the papers are covered in bullet points.) I made several lists, one organized by topic first, one by importance, one by alphabetical order, and -
JASHIN: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
JASHIN: Sounds good.
HAZŌ starts to get up from the seance circle.
JASHIN: Wait. When you say "random locations", you mean on the Paths, right?
HAZŌ: No. That turned out to be hard. I figure it shouldn't be too risky if I only -
JASHIN: Kid, you are not opening a rift into my house.
HAZŌ: ... Can't you manipulate probabilities? You could just make the rift not open into your house.
Pause. HAZŌ sits back down.
HAZŌ: Also, you have a house?
JASHIN: ...
HAZŌ: Oh, also, while I've got you here, are you the Washerman, or the Unkind One? And how exactly does your probability manipulation work? And did you favour one of the Sage's companions? And come to think of it, how are you talking to me anyway? Hidan said your tongue was cut out.
JASHIN: No, no, not telling, yes, and I just spread that rumour to try and get people to stop bugging me. (Pause.) Speaking of which ...
HAZŌ: Right. I'll figure out something else interesting to do. (Pause.) Wait, you didn't answer my question about you having a house.
JASHIN: ...
KEI (enter stage left, following a trail of unexpectedly fallen branches): Hazō, are you communing with an eldritch god that should have remained forever sealed beyond this mortal coil?
HAZŌ (still in his seance trance): No?
KEI wins the Deceit roll!
KEI: Hazō, we discussed this. I shall convey you to the nearest volcanic caldera forthwith.
KEI picks HAZŌ up and carries him away.
JASHIN: Thank the Sage.
THE WASHERMAN (enter from the Naraka Path, holding several corpses): What was that about?
JASHIN: It's a long story -
HAZŌ (lifting his head, revealing himself to be one of the corpses): Lord Jashin! While I was being thrown into the caldera, I came up with lots more questions I wanted to ask you! (HAZŌ pulls out a sheaf of papers from a kunai wound in his torso; on inspection, the papers are covered in bullet points.) I made several lists, one organized by topic first, one by importance, one by alphabetical order, and -
JASHIN: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Edit: Thinking about it, I guess the timeline doesn't quite add up here, since this would be happening after we switched out the afterlife rift for a different one, so presumably we already did the research; but I've already written it, so too late for that.
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- Location
- Washington, USA
The ability to see what happened maybe a week ago, during a specific known hour, in a specific zone, while standing in that zone? At some cost significant enough that he doesn't use it routinely, but would when the world's at stake? I'd say more like 75-80%. Chance of a random essie having that capability might be 2% or less but "utilitarian variant on his other known powers" and "notably many undocumented powers" counts for a lot. Also, he doesn't strictly need to already have the capability, just develop it faster than events in question slide out of range.
We don't need a separate rune for every conceivable variation - reason I mentioned grue-related experiences is there's abundant metaphysical precedent for such a "gap" being closed by some quasi-natural process filling in vaguely plausible alternate explanations for any lingering anomalous evidence. Mechanically, it'd be establishing a Block against the actual events of that interval being investigated / discovered. Hazo's memory would probably also be affected, but after he's successfully stolen the rift he doesn't really need to remember exactly how he did it, and the rift's new location would be safely outside the target area, thus still knowable.
Right now Akatsuki seems to think Hazo's just overconfident, ought to be slapped down to keep the rest of the world from getting ideas, but that's not their top priority. From their perspective, even if he and Sasori manage to develop rift-tech at the same time - heck, even on the off chance Hazo or Oro manage it first - Sasori has access to the site and Leaf doesn't. They don't want to take unnecessary chances, hence the dimensionalism research ban, but that's because they think they're in the lead. Shaking up the status quo could only make their position worse.
If Hazo is seen stealing their macguffin, and wielding superweapons in the process, that not only raises their threat assessment of him quite a bit, it puts him on the critical path. They'd need to steal it back to have any chance of rezzing Pain at all. Preserving the status quo doesn't look so favorable anymore. Resources they'd been committing to the necromancy program, or maintaining long-term interests, could then reasonably be redirected into the manhunt.
Also, if Hazo is seen stealing anybody's macguffin and using superweapons to cover his tracks, that M.O. makes Team Uplift the new lead suspects in the destruction of Isan, which could be used to turn the rest of the EN against Leaf without needing to reveal specifics of necromancy. Fact that Isan was generally believed to be on track for an alliance with Leaf at the time might make the diplomatic situation unrecoverable.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
All right, sounds like a plan.
Any given seal/rune infusion has a chance of resulting in failure, and any failure has a chance of destroying the world. Thus, for any given instance of research, there's a (minuscule) chance that it will end the world.
I would argue that the probability that a small random rift which quickly decays to an infinitesimal size will end the world is of the same order of magnitude as the probability that any given infusion will end the world.
Thus, we should either be fine with creating a random microrift, or we should halt all our research activities immediately. To do otherwise is inconsistent.
Thank you for saying this so eloquently. I feel the exact same way.
If we're willing to risk runic failures, we should be willing to risk this.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
How do we plan to explain to Kagome how we came across a rift to experiment on
Lie and say we failed a different one and got lucky?
Also we REALLY need to clarify to the QMs that we're doing it as a seal if possible since runes don't really do small scale
- Location
- Washington, USA
Rune is way up in the sky, target area is the bottom of a deep pit, or box canyon.
Alice is standing in an open area on the canyon floor, with clear LoS to the rune.
Bob is in a different zone, east of Alice, same elevation, inside the wall - in a narrow tunnel, or using HLAM or similar. Straight line from Bob to the rune passes through two unoccupied but mostly solid zones. The zone directly above Bob is a solid slab of bedrock, then the one above that is shattered rubble bound together by roots and vines, shot through with lots of winding holes which could fit bugs or small burrowing mammals but not humans.
Carol is peeking over the edge of the canyon, looking down at Alice from three zones away, on top of the vine-bound rubble above Bob, but still far below the rune.
Runic gunner tries to target Alice, but misses. Randomizer indicates one zone to the east. Does the blast's center hit Bob? Carol? The zone under Carol's feet, triggering an avalanche? "Bounce" and hit Alice after all? Fail to detonate?
I'm guessing that would involve absorbing enough nature chakra to turn part of yourself into stone on purpose, so the trick necessary to unlock it is figuring out how to quickly and reliably turn back.
We tell him we thought about it and decided this was the least dangerous course of action.
Fair enough.Also we REALLY need to clarify to the QMs that we're doing it as a seal if possible since runes don't really do small scale
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I would strongly caution anyone to not accidentally do a Pascal's Mugging analysis whereby a small chance of something infinitely bad happening dominates the entire EV calculation.
I also think that we should not be pushing our luck unnecessarily, but I think 1-3 tiny microrifts aren't likely to just nuke the gameboard.
All that aside, I think we have enough evidence to definitively state that probability does not behave as it should when it comes to one Gōketsu Hazō. I think that so long as we keep it reasonable and (more importantly) interesting, whatever entity is conjuring forth extraordinary coincidences in this kid's life will be fine with footing some portion of the metaphorical bill there.
I also think that we should not be pushing our luck unnecessarily, but I think 1-3 tiny microrifts aren't likely to just nuke the gameboard.
All that aside, I think we have enough evidence to definitively state that probability does not behave as it should when it comes to one Gōketsu Hazō. I think that so long as we keep it reasonable and (more importantly) interesting, whatever entity is conjuring forth extraordinary coincidences in this kid's life will be fine with footing some portion of the metaphorical bill there.
Rihaku
The Internet
This is what I previously thought prior to reading Velerion's clarifications, but he pushed back very substantially against the idea. And, I can see how his position makes sense - there are some effects like a false vacuum collapse that don't care much about size. If Vel says Hazou thinks the microrift has as much as a 5% chance of killing him through all the precautions he normally takes, I believe him.
And 5% is much, much greater than "infinitesimal" in this case, esp if Hazou has to make multiple rift runes in the veterancy chain before getting to useful targeting.
There are so many other things Hazou can usefully research; now that we've gotten serious GM warnings about this line I would rather heed them. If rift opening tech was the only useful line then I would likely feel differently.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Random thought, but have we tested whether force claws ignore armor or not? I could see it going either way. The massive Weapons Rating already reflects the grievous damage you inflict with it, but I wonder if that is also supposed to account for it chopping through something like Pangolin earth armor as if it were paper (the material of course🗿)
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
The QMs are essentially obligated by the structure and style of this quest to give us vague half-answers when we ask about the danger or capabilities of anything that does not have a well-established answer that is astoundingly concrete.
This happens a lot both in and out of character. I don't think pushback to the tune of "Remember, this is likely still somewhat dangerous." is really indicative of anything particular. Signal to noise ratio isn't good enough for that.
Seems like 5% is an extreme overestimate of the bad odds and it's really much lower.
If he makes one rift that doesn't kill him that's all we need, right?
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Sure, but you were talking about the chance of destroying the world, not of killing Hazou (unless you're equating the two in the sense that Hazou's death ends the quest?).
Rihaku
The Internet
The specific player misconception Vel corrected was this:
1) A very small untargeted rift is infinitesimally unlikely to cause wide ranging consequences
This built on Paper's earlier statement that the rift might hit a part of the Out with exotic physics that causes a powerful negative reaction with this world. Players initially dismissed this statement because the rift was going to be both tiny and transient, and the answer was "no, those attributes don't make an untargeted rift necessarily safe for the world."
Size and transience do not necessarily matter with something like a false vacuum collapse. This isn't a vague GM warning, they are being very specific that a small temporary rift can still be an existential threat, and Hazou is not well-informed enough to be confident that said threat is "infinitesimal."
I don't see anything in the statement quoted that implies 5% is an extreme overestimate. 5% is the upper bound of danger according to Hazou; that doesn't imply his true best guess % is much lower.
1) A very small untargeted rift is infinitesimally unlikely to cause wide ranging consequences
This built on Paper's earlier statement that the rift might hit a part of the Out with exotic physics that causes a powerful negative reaction with this world. Players initially dismissed this statement because the rift was going to be both tiny and transient, and the answer was "no, those attributes don't make an untargeted rift necessarily safe for the world."
Size and transience do not necessarily matter with something like a false vacuum collapse. This isn't a vague GM warning, they are being very specific that a small temporary rift can still be an existential threat, and Hazou is not well-informed enough to be confident that said threat is "infinitesimal."
I don't see anything in the statement quoted that implies 5% is an extreme overestimate. 5% is the upper bound of danger according to Hazou; that doesn't imply his true best guess % is much lower.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
I'm extremely nervous about disagreeing with you on decision theory, but this strikes me as inaccurate. Rune research has a probabilistic chance of creating a rift or other dangerous infusion failure. That is a cost incurred in the hope of receiving a benefit in the form of a completed Rune. All the completed research so far has unlocked some combination of combat, utility, or esoteric functionality that can be used in many different contexts. Rune research is conducted despite the risk of infusion failure because we believe that the benefits of these functions outweigh the risk of a roll on the infusion failure table.
By contrast, a Rune specifically designed to generate a rift carries the risk of dangerous failure (in the bad state) in order to achieve the benefit of… a dangerous random effect on a success. The impact of a successful research roll on Hazo's survival odds has different valence for the Microrift Rune and for the Force Dome Rune!
The successfully researched Runes so far are much less likely to kill Hazo during normal (successful) operation than the Microrift Rune would be. If your prior on the relative size of risks and benefits of Rune Research was already close, it would be internally consistent to avoid Runes that have the risk of killing Hazo even without an infusion failure while continuing to do other "conventional" research projects.
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